Thursday, May 20, 2010

i took out mount hamilton from the pleasanton bart station. rode through about 10 miles of civilization (pleasanton/livermore), then turned down mines road (the tour of california had been on mines the day before) into the most remote area i've been too. i turned right onto san antonio valley rd (highway 130) at the junction, and then climbed up to the top of mount hamilton (4360 ft), the highest peak in the bay area. lots of false climbs on this one (where you think you're finally climbing the mountain, but really just more and more lumps, bumps, foothills, and the rest) afterwards i flew down mt hamilton rd (still highway 130) into san jose, took a left onto alum rock, and rode downtown to the caltrain station. excellent views on this mountain. LOTS and LOTS of wildlife too. nice one.

Friday, May 14, 2010

caltrain to menlo park.. two passes of the santa cruz mountains: old la honda road, and alpine road/page mill road (via highway 84 & pescadero).. then i followed the san andreas fault back to the city.

caltrain is quite awesome.. bart is so un-bike-friendly it was really refreshing to ride a "chuga chuga woo woo" style train..

Monday, May 10, 2010

so we were on our way to go camping in big basin (near santa cruz in the mountains) when we ended up with a serious technical difficulty. we had used duct tape and shoelaces (excellent combo) to attach some bags/shoes/items to our bikes.. both of our bikes are light, fast, racing bikes.. pat's happens to be an all carbon madone 5.9 (due to trek's incredible warranty program) and he happened to fashion his shoes to the bike in a less than perfect way.. let's just say some screws were cut off, and the seat mask was ruined... anyway, we decided to get picked up (thanks änna) and spent the day glad that we broke down in such an awesome place (montara beach, just south of devil's slide on highway one).. after änna arrived, i had a woman offer to let us borrow her brand new car.. pretty nice.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

usually don't have people in my photos i know, but i only took a few pictures on this ride, and i figured a photo of patrick climbing up through the redwoods near the middle of bofax would be appropriate.. sometimes in the redwoods you forget you're climbing.. i guess you sort of forget everything really.

Monday, May 3, 2010

about 5500 feet of elevation gain, and approximately 60 miles.. alpine dam is a favorite. my phone was acting quite sour for a bit.. now i've realized i need to treat it like the computer that it is.. reinstall the program, delete all my messages and other cashe, etc.. now it's working a little better for me as of late.

as always, the most beautiful parts of the rides are usually not convenient places to take pictures.. you get sort of an idea if you go back through all the posts labeled alpine dam loop, but you know, you kind of had to be there.